A substantial portion of my childhood memories revolve around exploring the open fields and patches of prairie that once dominated the town where I grew up (you can still find a little of it left today, but it’s mostly been filled in with warehouses, shopping plazas, and the massive WeatherTech headquarters that I’m pretty sure is actually Trypticon). I’ve had a deep interest in nature for as far back as I can remember, and I loved cataloging all of the bugs, plants, mushrooms, and the like I could find out there. Every once in a while, I would run across these funny little papery “lanterns” lying on the ground. Inside, they had a single shiny orange berry. None of the adults I showed them to back then had any idea what they were, so I never dared eat one. But they smelled fantastic, and for years I was left wondering if I could have.
I was well into my adult years before I finally learned the identity of those odd little fruits: ground cherries. And they are most certainly edible. A close relative of tomatillos and Cape Gooseberries (aka goldenberries), ground cherries are one of those “old fashioned” backyard garden favorites that fell into obscurity after large-scale commercial farming came to be the norm. Today, they have largely been relegated to farmers’ market stalls and upscale restaurants that try to pass them off as some rare, exotic delicacy. This is a shame, really, since they are fantastic little fruits. Aside from being quite attractive both in and out of their husks, they have a lightly sweet flavor and will keep for weeks (if not months) when left out at room temperature.
This year, Chele and I – not content to rely on stores and farmers’ markets to provide us with weird and interesting produce – decided to try our hand at planting a garden. As you might have guessed by now, ground cherries were right at the top of my list of things I wanted to try. Weather, weeds, and struggles with timing presented us with plenty of challenges this year, but the ground cherries were one of our biggest successes. We planted the “Aunt Molly’s” variety, from seeds we purchased from Baker’s Creek, and they were absolutely bulletproof. It didn’t matter where we planted them or what sort of care we gave them, they just grew and started spitting out little papery lanterns faster than we knew what to do with them. Seriously, we’ve ended up with literal buckets full of them, and they are still going.
While I have certainly been tempted to just eat them all straight out of their husks, I knew I should take advantage of having such ample quantities of them and try out some recipes. Traditional recipes are mostly for things like jams, pies, salsas, and such – all quite nice, but I wanted to try something a little more creative. Digging a little deeper on Google, I found this recipe for ground cherry and pistachio hand pies. Intrigued, I gave it try. The results had fantastic flavor, but they relegated the ground cherries to essentially flavoring the syrup that held the pistachios together. I wanted something that put them front and center and had a more obvious fruit presence. So I went back and upped the amount of ground cherries substantially, adjusted the spices, traded honey for the maple, and ditched the icing.
The finished product was exactly what I was hoping for: big, juicy bursts of ground cherry backed up with just enough nuts to make these hearty enough to serve as a light breakfast or a memorable dessert.
Ground Cherry Hand Pies
Ingredients
- 1⅓ cup ground cherries husks removed
- 3 Tbs finely chopped pistachios
- 2 Tbs honey
- ½ tsp cardamom
- ½ tsp ground sumac
- 1 sheet puff pastry
- 1 egg white
- decorative large-crystal sugar (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Add honey, pistachios, cardamom, sumac, and 1 cup ground cherries to a small saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat, and bring to a boil while stirring constantly. Continue cooking and stirring for 10 minutes, mashing the ground cherries with the spoon as they soften.
- Remove from heat. Stir in remaining ⅓ cup of whole ground cherries and set aside.
- Cut puff pastry into 6 equal pies (these will become the tops and bottoms of the pastries).
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and lay three piece of the puff pastry on it. Spoon equal amounts of the ground cherry mixture on to the center of each pastry piece. Distribute the mixture even across the pastry, leaving enough room around the edges to connect the pastry top (about ¼ to ½ inch).
- Brush the edges of the pastry with egg white, then lay the remaining three pastry pieces over the tops. Press down the edges to close your hand pies, then gently press down again using the tines of a fork to seal them. Brush tops with egg white, then sprinkle each pie with decorative large-crystal sugar (if desired).
- Bake at 350° for 20 minutes, or until pastry tops are lightly golden.
- Remove from oven to a wire rack and allow to cool before serving.
Notes
- Ground cherries, also called husk cherries, are in season from late summer through fall. If you aren’t growing your own or lucky enough to find them growing wild, try looking for them at farmers’ markets during this time of year. You may also find them at gourmet food markets, but expect to pay an unnecessary premium for them.
- For best results, choose fully ripe ground cherries when reserving the 1/3 cup to leave whole (these will be a rich orange color, and slightly translucent). If you end up with any that are still a little green or otherwise imperfect, those would be fine to cook down in the “sauce”.
- Nightshade-sensitivity notice: Ground cherries are a member of the nightshade family. If you are sensitive to nightshades, especially tomatoes and/or tomatillos, you should avoid eating these. Unfortunately, we don’t know of a good non-nightshade alternative for these.
- Can this be made gluten-free? We have not looked into if pre-made gluten-free puff pastry is on the market, or if there are recipes for it. If such a thing exists, that would be the way to go. Alternately, you could use a non-puff gluten-free pastry dough for these. You won’t get the same presentation or flaky texture, but we imagine they should still be pretty good.
